The Edge

Luke 4:21-30 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Then Jesus began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been
fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him
and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is
not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them,
“Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you
will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did
at Capernaum.’” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no
prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But
the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the
heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine
over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of
them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There
were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and
none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When
they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They
got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which
their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But
he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

A
scene in last week’s scripture put Jesus back in his hometown. It was a highly anticipated and exciting
event to have Jesus come to preach and teach where he grew up. There was a buzz about them as they gathered
to hear what this homegrown boy had to say.
All seemed to go well and it’s said in scripture that “All spoke well of
him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” The fact that this was Joseph’s son speaking seemed
to surprise and astound many. Yet, many
in the crowd sneered at his words as he spoke the truth.

Why were they so angry? Why had the crowd gone from excited
anticipation, to being amazed at his speech, to being so furious at the content
and how he challenged them with the truth about themselves? Jesus inflames them even more by saying that
with the attitudes some were harboring in their hearts at that very moment, the
Nazareth community was not worthy of a divine working. (sermon.com) And so, Jesus would go elsewhere – saying
“Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

Author,
physician, and early developer of integrative medicine and a person who has had
a life-long struggle with Crohn’s disease, Rachel Naomi Remen, wrote in her
book Kitchen Table Wisdom: “A label
is a mask life wears.” That is perhaps
true for Jesus and how the hometown folk labeled him. I have shared with you
one of Remen’s stories in the past, and I share another one this morning from
the chapter entitled: How We See One
Another.

“As
an adolescent I was tall, pimply, and frankly, homely. My family is a family of elegant women and my
second cousin, who was several years older than I, took it upon herself to help
me with the graces that my intellectual parents deemed unimportant. One Saturday a month she would take me
shopping and then to lunch at the Russian Tea Room, a formal and lovely place
in New York. These excursions were agony
for me. All the clothes I tried on hung
on me. I had grown tall rapidly and was
painfully clumsy. Once I tripped over my
own feet and fell full-length in the street, scraping both knees and my chin
and soiling my dress. My cousin was a
very kind woman who seemed neither critical nor ashamed of me. She helped me up and took me to tea, bleeding
chin, dirty dress, and all.

After
a few years of this she married. Caught
up in the demands of my education and then my professional training, I lost
touch with her. Some years later, when
her children were in school and I was a young doctor, we resumed our shopping
lunches. Now when we entered the Russian
Tea Room together we would stop conversation – both of us very tall and exotic
looking, we would take it by storm. This
might have been great fun except for the fact that my cousin had never updated
her inner picture of me. Despite the
obvious changes in my looks and capabilities, she still saw me as a hopelessly
clumsy adolescent. And I could not
escape her unspoken expectations.

We
would sit down to lunch and in the course of the afternoon I would regress. I would spill my red win across the flawless
white tablecloth or dribble gravy down the front of my dress. Once the strap of my purse caught underneath
the bag, upsetting it and spilling lipsticks, keys, wallets, and [other
embarrassing items] across the tearoom floor.
My cousin bore these incidents graciously without comment. Totally unaware of her role in these
happenings and the power of her private image, she would smile at me with
compassion and acceptance and help me clean up the mess. It was infuriating.”

I
think Jesus was feeling some of these things as well. Perhaps you have had the same experience of
falling into these trappings or maybe it’s time for you to update your inner
perceptions of a younger person in your life. So too, the crowd had a hard time
accepting who Jesus was and Jesus confronted the crowd because of who they
were.

Bill Bouknight (Collected
Sermons, eSermons.com) wrote: “The people of Nazareth, the people Jesus grew up
with, the ones He had probably built furniture for or repaired a roof for. The people who he had attended Synagogue
with, got ‘Hopping Mad’ when he confronted them about how unaccepting they
were. They got ‘Madder than a hornet’
and attempted to throw Jesus off the cliff upon which the town was built. They weren’t just irritated they weren’t just
mad, they were ‘good and mad’ …”

Jesus held up a mirror to
them reflecting back their behavior and attitudes and prejudices, and character
and they were furious and drove him out of town with the mob mentality of
desiring to throw him off the cliff. But
he passed through them and went on his way.

Bouknight acknowledges
that “We despise people who challenge our cherished myths and kick us out of
our comfort zones. The truth is that
when Jesus sets about the task of saving us, he has to heal us of any myth or prejudice
that is contrary to the spirit of Christ.
[Evangelist] Billy Sunday was conducting a crusade in a particular
city. In one of his sermons he said
something critical of the labor conditions for workers in that area. After the service, several prominent
businessmen sent a message to him by one of the local pastors. The message was this –Billy, leave labor
matters alone. Concentrate on getting
people saved. Stay away from political
issues. You’re rubbing the fur the wrong
way.’ Billy Sunday sent this message
back to them: ‘If I’m rubbing the fur the wrong way, tell the cats to turn
around.’” Mirroring and speaking truth to power is always risky business.

Richard Wing acknowledged
that “Jesus lived on the margins and moved the margins to include all people,
and hence invited hostile crowds to want to edge him out of existence. Today the church wants to edge Jesus out of
our worship anytime the margins are made too wide and include too many who are
not like us. Recently I was sitting at
my computer, contemplating the way Jesus offended so many people so quickly in
his ministry. I asked, ‘why?’ The answer was at the top of my screen. My word processing instructions at the top
read; ‘Drag the margin boundaries on the rulers.’ That is why he upset people so much: in his
life he dragged the margin boundaries of race, creed, and color to include all
people. He dragged the margin boundaries
when he gave a common meal, which we have made a holy meal symbolic of his
inclusive love for all people. Jesus is
dragged to the edge of a cliff to be put out of the lives of his townspeople
because no one wants the margins of daily living to be inclusive of
strangers.” (Richard Wing, Deep Joy for
a Shallow World, CSS Publishing Co)

David
Davis mirrors and frames for us this reality in this way: “When God’s light
shines on the way of the cross, you and I are invited to see both the stretch
of God’s grace and the truth of our own disobedience. Here so early in Luke’s gospel, the Lord’s
encounter with humanity’s self-righteousness and preoccupation with the
hometown attitude, it is already driving him to the cross. Before the healings and the teaching and the
miraculous catch of fish, before Mary and Martha, and the Good Samaritan and
the Prodigal Son and Zacchaeus, before the rich man who was told to sell
everything and give it to the poor and the poor widow who put in everything she
had, before all of that, Jesus was on his way to the cross. Before Luke makes it abundantly clear that
the Gospel of Jesus Christ would reach into ‘all the living that you have’,
Jesus was well on his way. It’s
that reach that causes us to squirm, or to keep a safe distance, or to run
away. (David Davis, sermons.com)

As Rachel Naomi Remen’s
cousin was culpable but without awareness of the role she played in Rachel’s life,
we too are culpable and perhaps without awareness of the role we play that
brings Jesus to the cross once again.
It’s in the confrontation – the mirroring – that our own awareness
grows.

The night before I started to write this
sermon I had a dream. I was being
confronted with the fact that my own behavior was harming another. First I felt embarrassed, then I experienced
a sense of shame, then came anger and defensiveness and a desire for
retaliation. Then there came an
awareness not to hurt or fight back, or runaway, but an understanding of this
gift of grace that would enable me to work to change my behavior.

David Davis wrote that: “The
Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall wonders how is it that the theology of
‘megachurchianity’ in our culture assumes that everyone has the strong
compulsion to ‘get as close to Jesus as possible; [the reality, however, means
that] to draw near to this Jesus is to encounter the Gospel that confronts and
convicts and threatens. And you and I
find our place somewhere in Luke’s crowd, because if we’re honest, the Gospel
of Jesus Christ hits too close to home, to the hometown crowd. ‘They got up, drove him out of town and led
him to the brow of the hill on which their town was build, so that they might
hurl him off the cliff . . . but Jesus went on his way.” (David Davis,
sermons.com)

A
question for us to ponder this week: How
does today’s story mirror for us our own failings with those we meet around us,
in this world, and in this particular time and place in history?

The
reality may make us squirm or feel guilty or embarrassed or feel shame or anger
or want to retaliate or fight or runaway – or just possibly embrace this gift
of grace that mirrors our own work and character. This last choice is still not an easy one,
but it is a faithful one and a vulnerable one that calls us to look within at
our own culpability. That awareness then
helps us to expand our own embrace of the Gospel call – not only in our hearts
but in our daily living.

May
God continue to bless us and strengthen us for this sacred journey called
life. Amen.